There’s a wonderfully written post on Sean Blanda’s blog about fixing entrepreneurial journalism courses. Unusually, the post demonstrates a particularly acute understanding of the dynamics involved in teaching (Lesson One, based on my experience of teaching ‘strategic learners’, strikes me as a particularly effective tactic*, while Lesson Two addresses the most common problem in students’ ideas: vagueness, or ‘mass marketism’).

But it also reminded me of a conversation I had recently about journalism students’ reactions to being taught entrepreneurialism – and the one lesson that’s missing from Sean’s list.

It’s this lesson: “Why?”

Here’s the thing: journalism students – and I hope I’ll be forgiven for generalising horribly here – often have quite a conservative perspective of the profession. For example: despite print journalism bleeding jobs and online publishing being one of the biggest areas of growth, you wouldn’t know that by looking at the application numbers for the courses leading to each industry.

The majority of students still want to be print or broadcast journalists – even while most of them get all their news online and most people in the industry are having to adapt to multiplatform roles. And unfamiliar roles like community management take a great deal of explaination and justification.

Teaching entrepreneurial journalism, it seems, generates the same reaction. Many students struggle to connect with it on an emotional level, or, more often, worry about its impact on editorial independence.

So somewhere between lessons one and seven – probably quite early on – I’d add another: ‘Saying No‘

Saying No

This lesson would deal directly with negotiating the tension between short- and longer-term commercial demands; how to maintain good relationships while also maintaining a professional distance.

You’ll notice that I avoid using the terms ‘ethics’ or ‘editorial independence’ or other normative terms. Because, frankly, that language isn’t going to get you anywhere in an argument with an investor or publisher. And it will make that week’s class stick out as somehow ‘academic’ and unrelated to the core of entrepreneurship.

Ultimately, of course, it is about ethics and independence – but specifically why those ethics and that independence have evolved in traditional journalism, and how we have those arguments in the profession.

Ideally it would involve a case study or two of people who have found themselves in those positions of having to explain to an advertiser or client why we are not going to do what they want. I don’t think you’ll have to look far to find those. Every editor, publisher, and ad sales director deals with these every month.

Here are some starters: we say no to that advertiser because it will undermine our brand and reduce our audience, which the advertiser themselves does not want. We say no to that client’s demands because other clients will stop dealing with us if we don’t treat them all the same. We say no because we will end up in court (even if that’s not always true). We say no because our boss won’t agree to it (even if we don’t have to ask). We say no because the costs would outweigh the benefits.

What else should be in that lesson – and are there others?

*The idea of grading students *entirely* based on profits – or even revenue – is of course unworkable (universities could not accredit any course module based on this measurement), inappropriate (it’s not teaching the level of critical thought that a postgrad course should), and unrealistic within the timescale of study. Most new businesses don’t make money for their first couple of years, and under those criteria some of the biggest companies of the internet age would get an ‘F’ (and the biggest failures would get an ‘A’)But the principle of a small element based on this to get students’ minds focused and reward those who make a successful start, is a good one.

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Teaching has begun in the new academic year and once again I’m handing out a list of recommended RSS feeds. Last year this came in the form of an OPML file, but this year I’m using Google Reader bundles (instructions on how to create one of your own are here). There are 50 feeds in all – 5 feeds in each of 10 categories. Like any list, this is reliant on my own circles of knowledge and arbitrary in various respects. But it’s a start. I’d welcome other suggestions.

Here is the list with links to the bundles. Each list is in alphabetical order – there is no ranking:

5 of the best: Community

A link to the bundle allowing you to add it to your Google Reader is here.

1. Blaise Grimes-Viort
2. Community Building & Community Management
3. FeverBee
4. ManagingCommunities.com
5. Online Community Strategist

5 of the best: Data

This was a particularly difficult list to draw up – I went for a mix of visualisation (FlowingData), statistics (The Numbers Guy), local and national data (CountCulture and Datablog) and practical help on mashups (OUseful). I cheated a little by moving computer assisted reporting blog Slewfootsnoop into the 5 UK feeds and 10,000 Words into Multimedia. Bundle link here.

1. CountCulture
2. FlowingData
3. Guardian Datablog
4. OUseful.info
5. WSJ.com: The Numbers Guy

5 of the best: Enterprise

There’s a mix of UK and US blogs covering the economic side of publishing here (if you know of ones with a more international perspective I’d welcome suggestions), and a blog on advertising to round things up. Frequency of updates was another factor in drawing up the list. Bundle link here.

1. Ad Sales Blog
2. Media Money
3. Newsonomics
4. Newspaper Death Watch
5. The Information Valet

5 of the best: Industry feeds

Something of a catch-all category. There are a number of BBC blogs I could have included but The Editors is probably the most important. The other 4 feeds cover the 2 most important external drivers of traffic to news sites: search engines and Facebook. Bundle link here.

1. All Facebook
2. BBC News – The Editors
3. Facebook Blog
4. Search Engine Journal
5. Search Engine Land

5 of the best: Feeds on law, ethics and regulation

Trying to cover the full range here: Jack of Kent is a leading source of legal discussion and analysis, and Martin Moore covers regulation, ethics and law regularly. Techdirt is quite transparent about where it sits on legal issues, but its passion is also a strength in how well it covers those grey areas of law and the web. Tech and Law is another regular source, while Judith Townend’s new blog on Media Law & Ethics is establishing itself at the heart of UK bloggers’ attempts to understand where they stand legally. Bundle link here.

1. Jack of Kent
2. Martin Moore
3. Media Law & Ethics
4. Tech and Law
5. Techdirt

5 of the best: Media feeds

There’s an obvious UK slant to this selection, with Editors Weblog and E-Media Tidbits providing a more global angle. Here’s the bundle link.

1. Editors Weblog
2. E-Media Tidbits
3. Journalism.co.uk
4. MediaGuardian
5. paidContent

5 of the best: Feeds about multimedia journalism

Another catch-all category. Andy Dickinson tops my UK feeds, but he’s also a leading expert on online video and related areas. 10,000 Words is strong on data, among other things. And Adam Westbrook is good on enterprise as well as practising video journalism and audio slideshows. Bundle link here.

1. 10,000 Words
2. Adam Westbrook
3. Advancing the Story
4. Andy Dickinson
5. News Videographer

5 of the best: Technology feeds

A mix of the mainstream, the new, and the specialist. As the Guardian’s technology coverage is incorporated into its Media feed, I was able to include ReadWriteWeb instead, which often provides a more thoughtful take on technology news. Bundle link here.

1. Mashable
2. ReadWriteWeb
3. TechCrunch
4. Telegraph Connected
5. The Register

5 of the best: UK feeds

Alison Gow’s Headlines & Deadlines is the best blog by a regional journalist I can think of (you may differ – let me know). Adam Tinworth’s One Man and his Blog represents the magazines sector, and Martin Belam’s Currybetdotnet casts an eye across a range of areas, including the more technical side of things. Murray Dick (Slewfootsnoop) is an expert on computer assisted reporting and has a broadcasting background. The Online Journalism Blog is there because I expect them to read my blog, of course. Bundle link here.

1. Currybetdotnet
2. Headlines and Deadlines
3. One Man & His Blog
4. Online Journalism Blog
5. Slewfootsnoop

5 of the best: US feeds

Jay, Jeff and Mindy are obvious choices for me, after which it is relatively arbitrary, based on the blogs that update the most – particularly open to suggestions here. Bundle link here.

1. BuzzMachine
2. Jay Rosen: Public Notebook
3. OJR
4. Teaching Online Journalism
5. Yelvington.com

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I had an interesting meeting recently with an MP who wanted to get a handle on the state of the media right now and how good journalism could be supported. Rather than just hear my voice I thought it would be worth starting something wider that involves more voices, and point him to this.

To kick things off, here are some of the things I thought the government could do to create an environment that supports good journalism:

• Release of public data (I’ve made this case before – it’s about helping create efficiencies for anyone reporting on public bodies). He seemed to feel that this argument has already been won.
• Tax relief on donations to support investigative journalism: a number of philanthropists, foundations, public bodies and charities are starting to fund investigative journalism to fill the ‘market failure’ of commercial news production. In addition, an increasing amount of investigative journalism is being done by campaigning organisations rather than news organisations, and there is also the opportunity for new types of businesses – social enterprises and community interest companies – to fund journalism.
• Encouraging innovation and enterprise: as regional publishers reduce their reporting staff and shut down their less profitable publications, gaps are appearing in local news coverage. Local people are launching news sites and blogs to fill those gaps – but not quickly enough, or with the resources, to match what was left behind. Funds to support these startups are much-needed and might also encourage journalists who have been made redundant to put their experience into an independent operation. There is no evidence to suggest that subsidising existing publishers will subsidise journalism; indeed, I would suggest it will stifle local innovation and economic growth.
• Reskilling of redundant journalists: related to the last point, I would like to see funds made available to help put redundant journalists (more Chris Browns and Rick Waghorns) in a position to launch news startups. They have a wealth of experience, ability, knowledge and contacts that shouldn’t be left to waste - give them online and enterprise skills.
• An effective local news consortia: The Digital Britain-mooted local news consortia is a vague idea in need of some meat, but clearly it could go some way to meeting the above 2 by supporting local independent media and providing training. Allowing the usual suspects to dominate any new operation will see business as usual, and innovative independent operators – including those who work on a non-commercial basis – will quickly become disillusioned. The idea of putting some or all of the commissioning process in the hands of the public, for instance, could be very interesting.
• Address libel laws: one of the biggest obstacles to investigative reporting is the potential legal costs. Most newspapers now make a hard commercial decision on stories: if the story is worth enough money to make it worth fighting, it gets published; otherwise, it doesn’t. Public interest or importance is not the major factor other than in how it affects likely sales. Likewise, startup operations are likely to shy away from edgier reporting if they feel they can’t afford to fight for it in the courts. Stopping councils from suing for libel was an important step; keeping libel laws out of science should be the next one – and it shouldn’t stop there.

So those are the ideas that occurred to me. What would you suggest this MP, and government, do to help journalism?

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The government has launched a new inquiry into the future of local and regional media – and there’s just six weeks to have your say on the subject.

None of us (yet) have the answers to the question of new journalism business models, and the local and regional press is suffering some of the hardest hits.  But ideas and initiatives are presenting themselves everyday. And now the Culture, Media and Sport Committee is looking for views on a range of tough issues, including:

• The impact of newspaper closures on independent local journalism and access to local information;
• How to fund quality local journalism;
• The appropriateness and effectiveness of print and electronic publishing initiatives undertaken directly by public sector bodies at the local level;
• The opportunities and implications of BBC partnerships with local media;
• Incentives for investment in local content;
• Opportunities for “ultra-local” media services.

We’re thinking about a collective response from journalism educators and OJB readers to the key questions, coordinated from here. So to begin with, what are your ideas, links to the best think pieces you’ve read or examples you’ve seen? Do you agree with the call to relax competition laws to allow local newspaper publishers to merge? Or what about Andy Burnham’s statement that there will be no bailout for local papers.

Let’s use this as a starting point to develop a collective, crowdsourced response to the inquiry.

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From September I will be running an MA in Online Journalism at Birmingham City University. I hope it’s going to be different from any other journalism MA.

That’s because in putting it together I’ve had the luxury of a largely blank canvas, which means I’ve not had to work within the strictures and structures of linear production based courses.

The first words I put down on that blank piece of paper were: Enterprise; experimentation; community; creativity.

And then I fleshed it out:

In the Online Journalism MA’s first stage (Certificate) students will study Journalism Enterprise. This will look at business models for online journalism, from freemium to mobile, public funding to ad networks, alongside legal and ethical considerations. I’m thinking at the moment that each student will have to research a different area and present a business case for a startup.

They will also study Newsgathering, Production and Distribution. I’m not teaching them separately because, online, they are often one and the same thing. And as students should already have basic skills in these areas, I will be focusing on building and reinventing those as they run a live news website (I’ll also be involved in an MA in Social Media, so there should be some interesting overlap).

This is an explicit space for students to try new things, fail well, and learn what works. They will do this in partnership with a news organisation based on a problem they both identify (e.g. not making enough revenue; poor community; etc.) – I’ve already lined up partnerships with national and regional newspapers, broadcasters and startups in the UK and internationally: effectively the student acts as a consultant, with the class as a whole sharing knowledge and experience.

Alongside that they will continue to explore more newsgathering, production and distribution, exploring areas such as computer assisted reporting, user generated content, multimedia and interactivity. They may, for example, conduct an investigation that produces particularly deep, engaging and distributed content and conversation.

The final stage is MA by Project – either individually or as a group, students make a business case for a startup or offshoot, research it, build it, run it and bid for funding.

By the time they leave the course, graduates should not be going into the industry at entry level (after all, who is recruiting these days?), but at a more senior, strategic level – or, equally likely, to establish startups themselves. I’m hoping these are the people who are going to save journalism.

At the moment all these plans are in draft form. I am hoping this will be a course without walls, responding to ideas from industry and evolving as a result. Which is why I’m asking for your input now: what would you like to see included in an MA Online Journalism? The BJTC’s Steve Harris has mentioned voice training, media law and ethics. The BBC’s Peter Horrocks has suggested programming and design skills. You may agree or disagree.

Let’s get a conversation going.

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On Friday May 8 2009 I’ll be hosting JEEcamp09 – an unconference (or barcamp) for journalism experimenters.

Last year’s JEEcamp was great. This year we’re doing it all again, but with some cute ideas to stir things up.

These include: 

• Open mic for business models for news: Attendees are invited to explain how they think news can support itself online. 5 min limit.
• Speed networking: attendees get a minute each with a random other attendee to swap cards and explain what they do.
  
• Musical chairs panel discussion: Begins as a standard panel discussion – but once a panel member has responded to a question, they are replaced by someone else in the ‘audience’, raffle-style.

And there will be other ideas as we go along. If you have any other ideas for stirring up the traditional format, I’d love to hear them.

The day will be opened by Kyle Macrae, the man behind one of the original new media journalism startups, Scoopt. That was sold to Getty in 2007, who closed it down last month. Kyle will be talking about his experiences of getting Scoopt off the ground, and why he thinks Getty failed to make it viable.

After that, the really interesting stuff is in the heads of the attendees, how we – and you – get it out. 

You can get tickets at http://jeecamp09.eventbrite.com/ - and add your comments below as to how you’d like this to pan out.

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Here’s another one for that book I’m working on – I’m trying to think: what have been the most significant events in the history of journalism blogging?

Here’s what I have so far (thanks Mark Jones and Nigel Barlow):

• 1998: The Drudge Report breaks the Monica Lewinsky story. While Drudge denies the site is a blog, it demonstrated how the nimbleness of an online operation could scoop the mainstream media.
• 2001: September 11 attacks: while news websites collapse under the global demand, a network of blogs pass on news and lists of survivors
• 2002: Trent Lott forced to resign after apparently pro-segregationist statements made at an event and initially ignored by mainstream media, were picked up and fleshed out by bloggers
• 2003: Invasion of Iraq: Salam Pax, the ‘Baghdad Blogger’, posts updates from the city as it is bombed, providing a particular contrast to war reporters ‘embedded’ with the armed forces and demonstrating the importance of non-journalist bloggers
• 2003: Christopher Allbritton raises $15,000 through his blog Back-to-Iraq 3.0, to send him to report independently from the war, demonstrating the ability of blogs to financially support independent journalism (called the ‘tip-jar model’).
• 2004: Rathergate/Memogate: CBS’ 60 Minutes broadcast a story about George W. Bush’s National Guard service, and within minutes a section of the blogosphere mobilises to discredit the documents on which it is based. Dan Rather eventually resigns as a result.
• 2004: Asian Tsunami: more blogs mobilise around a disaster, of particular significance for video blogging
• 2005: July 7 Bombings, London: mobile phone image of passengers walking along Tube tunnel posted on MoBlog (although was first sent to The Sun), and goes global from there. A significant moment in moblogging.
• 2006: The Pulitzer Prize for Public Service cites the blog run by the New Orleans Times Picayune during Hurricane Katrina. The flexibility of blogs during a disaster which stopped printing presses and delivery trucks was driven home (h/t Bob Stepno).
• 2007: Talking Points Memo blog breaks story of US attorneys being fired across the country, demonstrating the power of involving readers in an investigation, and carrying it out in public (h/t Albert in the comments).
• 2007: Dave Winer wins his $2,000 bet (made in 2002) that blogs will rank higher than the New York Times for the top 5 news stories of 2007 (h/t Bob Stepno), demonstrating the importance of blogging in news distribution.
• 2007: Myanmar protests: the clampdown that followed democratic protests in the country was seen around the world thanks to blogging, moblogging, and social networking sites. Journalists were not allowed in the country. Even after the government cut off the internet, bloggers located outside the country continued to post material. (h/t Sandra Fish in comments)
• 2008: Peter Hain resigns over donations revealed by UK political blogger Guido Fawkes, who in 2006 broke a story on an affair by Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott which he claimed lobby correspondents were sitting on
• 2008: Chinese Earthquake: a key moment for microblogging, as news of the earthquake spreads on Twitter (and Chinese IM service QQ) quicker than any official channels.
• 2008: Collapse of Northern Rock: BBC correspondent Robert Peston breaks one of the biggest stories of the year – not on TV, but on his blog.

What have I missed? This is a horribly Anglo-American list, too, so I’d particularly welcome similar moments from other countries.

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Earlier this year, Yale Environment 360 launched as an environmental, online-only publication with an international audience in mind. The articles cover global and national environmental issues and concerns.  Allison White spoke to Editor Roger Cohn about the publication’s online goals for the magazine and its audience.

Why did you choose to go solely online? What are the benefits and draw backs?

We chose to go solely online for two reasons: the first is that we saw it as a way to reach a wider and truly international audience.  We are covering global environmental issues, and we are looking to have readers internationally. 

Also, we are published at Yale University, and Yale has made a priority of being a global university.

The second reason we didn’t also do a print magazine in addition to the online magazine, is that there would have been significantly more costs involved.

As for the benefits of this approach, it enables us to reach an international audience.

The drawbacks? Maybe that we don’t have a print version to promote our brand, but I don’t really think that’s a significant problem.

What kind of user community do you plan on building with the site?

We are looking to build a user community of informed, but not expert, readers who follow environmental issues – environmentalists, scientists, policy makers, academics, “green” businesspeople, and people who simply have a strong interest in these issues.

We look to bridge the gap between academic online journals on the environment and more popular, green lifestyle sites.

How will people interact with your content?

We have a comment area at the end of each article, and it’s turning into a place where users can engage in some fairly robust comment.  So far, in our first four months of operation, we’ve had over 350 comments posted, with numerous highly spirited and informed discussions.

We are planning to expand the interaction on the site, with authors of articles engaging in discussions with readers and with experts debating each other on the site.

Who is your audience and how do you think that affects how users interact with your site?

Our audience, as I noted above, are informed, but not expert, readers who follow environmental issues – environmentalists, scientists, policy makers, academics, “green” businesspeople, and people who have a strong interest in these issues.

I think our audience feels passionately about many of the issues we cover, and so I think we have the opportunity to engage readers more in interacting with the site.

What are your plans for the online publication, especially considering involving readers (if at all)?

We intend to include more multimedia – video, slideshows, and audio.  The subject we cover, the environment, lends itself well to visual approaches.

We also will seek to expand the opportunities for discussion and comment on the site, particularly with making authors available to discuss issues with users.

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As communism fell in Lithuania 19 years ago, existing dailies started to publish what they wanted. And what they wanted was money. The 2 main titles promptly became filled with advertorial paid for by politicians and industrialists.

The Lithuanian public quickly became disheartened with the printed press and turned to the internet instead. That’s why the audience of Lithuanian #1 website for news is only 8 times smaller than its UK counterpart, even though the country is 20 times as small as the UK (and twice as poor in terms of GDP per capita).

Seeing this enthusiasm for online news, MG Baltic, a Vilnius-based holding that trades in everything from consumer goods to news, decided to launch a website. The avowed goal was to complement their mass media portfolio.

On August 7, 2006, alfa.lt was born. 2 years later, it’s the national #3 website for news and #6 website overall. It’s also on-track towards breaking even with profitability planned for 2010.

To know more about this success story, I went to alfa’s office and interviewed the project manager and editor-in-chief, Virgis Valentinavicius.

Business plans aren’t dead

Far from an idealistic website that would make the world better, alfa.lt is the brainchild of executives eager to milk online advertisers. This made Virgis’ discourse very different from the traditional ‘do first, monetize later’ motto heard in start-ups. For him, every single litas invested must be turned into clicks.

The brand’s philosophy is to reach to young, hard-working and high-achieving Lithuanians looking for serious information. Now, this young professional also needs entertainment, which alfa.lt provides. This mix of news and entertainment should make alfa.lt an all-encompassing provider of quality content. Dumbing-down isn’t in alfa.lt’s interest, Virgis said, as intelligent readers are more profitable in the long run.

(As I don’t read Lithuanian, I haven’t been able to make my opinion on alfa’s quality. A Lithuanian friend of mine was very critical of its content, calling it ‘similar to yellow press.’ Do you read alfa? What’s your opinion on its quality?)

Online marketing is the key

Success came from one main source: online marketing, Virgis explained. Alfa was the first in Lithuania to invest massively in targeted online ads. Designed to look like headlines, they were first put on Google Adwords, on news-related keywords, but this proved too expensive.

Instead, alfa.lt advertised on social networks. One.lt, the country’s #1 social network, provided alfa.lt with the demographic it needed at a very cheap price. Today, Virgis is thinking about stopping such online-advertising campaigns. In 2 years, prices have tripled as competitors started to use the same technique.

Online ads were at the foundation of alfa.lt’s success, Virgis said. In 2007, the site’s traffic increased fivefold from 100k unique users a month to 500k.

It’s all about the content

To satisfy this audience it acquired at great costs, alfa.lt has to offer the best possible articles. The bulk of the company’s resources are oriented toward content-creation.

About 20 journalists fill the crowded newsroom in the business district of Vilnius. Like every post-socialist country, Lithuania severely lacks journalists. Market pressures mean that salaries are sky-high and talent is rare.

Adding another twist to an already-critical market situation, 3 news websites opened in 2007, pushing salaries even further. Virgis didn’t want to spend all its money on bringing journalist stars in the newsroom. Instead, he hired people who could react with speed and adapt to change quickly. ‘Journalism needs no education but common sense’, he said.

With very little resources and a challenger position (see graph), alfa.lt doesn’t want to take risks with content. On video for instance, Virgis is very cautious not to waste too much money. ‘Alfa needs to be very specific when doing video’, he said, and online TV is a luxury that doesn’t always bring clicks.

Same answer when it comes to social features. Alfa.lt’s in the news business, not in social networks, he repeated. These are 2 different markets that require different sets of skills. What he suggested was for his parent company to buy a social network so as to benefit from synergies.

As a result of this content-oriented strategy, almost 70% of all content on the site is home-made, compared to 50% at Delfi.lt, alfa’s main rival and market leader. That will give the site a serious competitive edge when Google news comes in Lithuania and start making direct deals with wire services, as happened with AFP and AP stories.

By Nicolas Kayser-Bril

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